The present invention relates to an information input device and an information input method.
The present application claims each priority from Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2004-088416 and 2005-066564, each disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
These days, AV (audiovisual) products, household electric appliances, industrial equipment, and computers have been expanded in their functionality. The expansion in functionality has required an increase in the amount of information to be provided thereto. This in turn has made information input devices sophisticated, thereby causing the users to feel awkward to use those devices. For example, a TV remote controller has many control buttons which make the user feel awkward to use it. Worse yet, its mode switching capability adds more functions to these buttons, which makes the user further confused in using it.
On the other hand, there are also GUI (Graphical User Interface) aided devices available for use with information input; however, they are not always easy to use. Under present circumstances, appropriate information input devices (such as pointing devices) have not been put into practical use which are provided with manipulation resolving power comparable to the resolution of display devices.
For example, a mouse, or a typical pointing device such as for use with PCs, requires a flat desktop surface of a certain area for manipulation and cannot be hand held for free manipulation. Furthermore, since the mouse requires the action of the wrist and the elbow and thus provides subtle control with difficulty, the mouse cannot be said to be an information input device with a high manipulation resolving power. On the other hand, a touch-panel type information input device is built in notebook PCs. In this arrangement, the panel itself is secured to the PC, thus lacking in manipulation flexibility. Additionally, the panel is intended to sense the position of such a big object as a finger, thus providing a significantly bad manipulation resolving power. The panel also causes the user to feel uncomfortable when the fingertip rubs against the panel.
To address these problems, various types of information input devices have been suggested which permit fingertip manipulations with greater flexibility.
For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 7-117875 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 10-301706 disclose information input devices which permit fingertip manipulations of an input portion “B” (slider or stick) of a device body “A” that is hand held or mounted on a finger (see FIG. 1A). On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 10-207616 discloses an information input device which allows a finger to slide an input portion “B” (control portion) relative to a device body “A” (base) so that a sensor provided under the input portion “B” senses the displacement of the input portion (see FIG. 1B).
In general, the human finger is said to provide the highest manipulation resolving power. However, in the conventional techniques mentioned above, the device body is basically secured to part of a hand or the like and allows manipulation on the device with one finger. Thus, this arrangement is not sufficiently enough to take advantage of the subtle resolving power of the fingertip. Accordingly, although the portability of the devices provides greater manipulation flexibility, there arises a problem when the devices are employed, e.g., as a GUI pointing device. That is, high manipulation resolving power cannot be provided corresponding to a high-resolution or wide display screen, thus making it difficult to accurately locate the pointer on the screen. It is also difficult to input various types of information through manipulation on one input portion due to lack of corresponding manipulation resolving power. Thus, this raises another problem that the types of information to be entered have to be reduced.